Context:
The Centre’s recent ban on using sugarcane juice and sugar syrup for ethanol production in the 2023-24 supply year aims to maintain adequate sugar availability for domestic consumption and stabilize prices. However, the government has permitted the use of B-molasses for ethanol production.
Relevance:
GS-III: Environment and Ecology, GS-III: Industry and Infrastructure
Dimensions of the Article:
- What is Ethanol fuel?
- What is ethanol blending?
- Advantages of Ethanol Blending
- Ethanol Blended Petrol Programme (EBP)
- Roadmap for Ethanol Blending in India by 2025
What is Ethanol fuel?
- Ethanol fuel is ethyl alcohol, the same type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages, used as fuel.
- It is most often used as a motor fuel, mainly as a biofuel additive for gasoline.
- Ethanol is commonly made from biomass such as corn or sugarcane.
- Bioethanol is a form of renewable energy that can be produced from agricultural feedstocks.
- It can be made from very common crops such as hemp, sugarcane, potato, cassava and corn.
- There has been considerable debate about how useful bioethanol is in replacing gasoline.
- Concerns about its production and use relate to increased food prices due to the large amount of arable land required for crops, as well as the energy and pollution balance of the whole cycle of ethanol production, especially from corn.
What is ethanol blending?
- Blending ethanol with petrol to burn less fossil fuel while running vehicles is called ethanol blending.
- Ethanol is an agricultural by-product which is mainly obtained from the processing of sugar from sugarcane, but also from other sources such as rice husk or maize.
- Currently, 10% of the petrol that powers your vehicle is ethanol.
- Though we have had an E10 — or 10% ethanol as policy for a while, it is only this year that we have achieved that proportion.
- India’s aim is to increase this ratio to 20% originally by 2030 but in 2021, when NITI Aayog put out the ethanol roadmap, that deadline was advanced to 2025.
- Ethanol blending will help bring down our share of oil imports (almost 85%) on which we spend a considerable amount of our precious foreign exchange.
- Secondly, more ethanol output would help increase farmers’ incomes.
- The NITI Aayog report of June 2021 says, “India’s net import of petroleum was 185 million tonnes at a cost of $55 billion in 2020-21,” and that a successful ethanol blending programme can save the country $4 billion per annum.
What are first generation and second generation ethanols?
- With an aim to augment ethanol supplies, the government has allowed procurement of ethanol produced from other sources besides molasses — which is first generation ethanol or 1G.
- Other than molasses, ethanol can be extracted from materials such as rice straw, wheat straw, corn cobs, corn stover, bagasse, bamboo and woody biomass, which are second generation ethanol sources or 2G.
Advantages of Ethanol Blending
- Use of ethanol-blended petrol decreases emissions such as carbon monoxide (CO), hydrocarbons (HC) and nitrogen oxides (NOx).
- The unregulated carbonyl emissions, such as acetaldehyde emission were, however, higher with E10 and E20 compared to normal petrol. However, these emissions were relatively lower.
- Increased use of ethanol can help reduce the oil import bill. India’s net import cost stands at USD 551 billion in 2020-21. The E20 program can save the country USD 4 billion (Rs 30,000 crore) per annum.
- The oil companies procure ethanol from farmers that benefits the sugarcane farmers.
- Further, the government plans to encourage use of water-saving crops, such as maize, to produce ethanol, and production of ethanol from non-food feedstock.
Ethanol Blended Petrol Programme (EBP)
- Ethanol Blended Petrol (EBP) programme was launched in 2003- and this initiative is pursued aggressively in the last 4 to 5 years to reduce import dependence of crude oil as well as mitigate environmental pollution.
- The Ethanol Blending Programme (EBP) seeks to achieve blending of Ethanol with motor sprit with a view to reducing pollution, conserve foreign exchange and increase value addition in the sugar industry enabling them to clear cane price arrears of farmers.
- Although the Government of India decided to launch EBP programme in 2003 for supply of 5% ethanol blended Petrol, it later scaled up blending targets from 5% to 10% under the Ethanol Blending Programme (EBP).
- The Government of India has also advanced the target for 20% ethanol blending in petrol (also called E20) to 2025 from 2030.
- Currently, 8.5% of ethanol is blended with petrol in India.
Roadmap for Ethanol Blending in India by 2025
- The central government has released an expert committee report on the Roadmap for Ethanol Blending in India by 2025 that proposes a gradual rollout of ethanol-blended fuel to achieve E10 fuel supply by April 2022 and phased rollout of E20 from April 2023 to April 2025.
- The Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas (MoP&NG) had instituted an Expert Group to study the issues such as pricing of ethanol, matching pace of the automobile industry to manufacture vehicles with new engines with the supply of ethanol, pricing of such vehicles, fuel efficiency of different engines etc.
How have other countries fared?
- Though the U.S., China, Canada and Brazil all have ethanol blending programmes, as a developing country, Brazil stands out.
- It had legislated that the ethanol content in petrol should be in the 18-27.5% range, and it finally touched the 27% target in 2021.
-Source: The Hindu
